constituting the judgment is not to be understood as an affirmation
of the necessity that any _other_ predicate of any sort should be
_added_ to the predicate of existence, nor even that _all the others
possible_ should be added to it. In the first case, we shall always
have an unjustifiable duality of predicates: that of existence and
that necessary for essentializing and completing the judgment; in
the second, duality would certainly be avoided, since to constitute
the judgment all the predicates would be necessary, without their
distinction into a double order, and all would be qualitative
predicates; but there would remain the idea of a successive addition
of predicates. Granted this idea, it is impossible ever to understand
what those acts would be, by which the first, or also the second, or
also the third predicate, and so on, should be attributed, without
yet attaining in such attributions the full totality of truth. They
are representations no longer; and not yet judgments: they are then
something insufficient and one-sided, whose existence could not be
admitted save arbitrarily (as in Psychology), and which, therefore,
would be inadmissible in Philosophy. It therefore only remains to
conclude that in the judgment, all possible predicates are _given in
one act_ alone; that is, that the subject is predicated as existence,
and for this very reason determined in a particular way; determined in
a particular way, and for this very reason, as existence.
In other words, the concept which is predicated in the individual
judgment is not and cannot be a fœtus or a sketch of a concept; but is
the whole concept, in its indivisible unity, as universal, particular
and singular. And if existence seem to be a first predicate, the reason
lies perhaps in this, that the concept of existence as actuality and
action, and in its distinction from mere possibility, is perhaps the
fundamental concept of the real, although on the other hand it is not
truly thinkable save as determined in the particular forms of reality;
hence that first predicate is first only in so far as it contains the
last, that is to say, is neither last nor first, but the whole. To
explain these statements is in any case, as has been said, the task of
the whole of Philosophy, not of Logic alone, which here, as elsewhere,
must rest satisfied with demonstrating the point that most closely
concerns it; that is to say, the impossibility of separating from one
another in the judgment, the predicates necessary for the determination
of the reality of the fact, the absence of any one of which renders the
judgment itself impossible.
[Footnote 1: See the _Philosophy of the Practical,_ pt. i. sect. ii.
ch. 6.]
VI
THE INDIVIDUAL PSEUDOCONCEPTS. CLASSIFICATION AND ENUMERATION
[Sidenote: _Individual pseudojudgments._]
As pseudoconcepts imitate pure concepts and the corresponding judgments
of definition, so by means of them are imitated pure individual
judgments, and spiritual formations are obtained, which can be
conveniently called _individual pseudojudgments._
[Sidenote: _Their practical character._]
The character of these pseudojudgments, like that of the
pseudoconcepts, is not cognitive, but practical and more properly
mnemonic. Fixing our attention upon certain examples of such judgments,
if we say of an animal: "It is a squirrel," or "It is a platyrrhine
monkey"; if we say of a house: "This house is thirty metres high
and forty wide"; if of a painting we say: "The _Transfiguration_ is
a sacred picture," or "The _Danaë_ is a mythological picture"; or
if of a literary work we say, "The _Promessi Sposi_ is a historical
romance";--what have we learned as to the true nature of the _Promessi
Sposi,_ of the _Transfiguration,_ of the _Danaë,_ of that house and of
those animals? Upon close consideration, nothing at all. The animals
have been put into one or another compartment or glass case, decorated
with a name which might also be different from what it is, as the
compartment and the glass case might also be different; the house
has been compared in respect of its dimensions to other houses or to
an object arbitrarily assumed as the unit of measurement, which is
the metre, but which might be the foot, the palm, and so on; the two
pictures and the literary work have been looked at from the visual
angle of an arbitrary character, such as the mythological, religious
or historical subject. As to what they truly are, as to how all these
things came to be and to live, and as to their relation with other
things and with the Whole, we have been silent. Their _value,_ as it is
called, remains unknown.
[Sidenote: _Genesis of the distinction between judgments of fact and
judgments of value; and criticism of them._]
This lack of all determination as to value, which is characteristic of
individual pseudoconcepts, gives support to the distinction between
judgments of _fact_ (as individual pseudojudgments are sometimes
called) and judgments of _value;_ a distinction which makes evident the
further need of supplying the spirit with what the first judgments
do not give, that is to say, with the meaning or value of things. But
since the individual pseudojudgments are not for us what they boast
themselves to be, judgments of fact, we have no need to complete them
with judgments of value; which would thus be themselves arbitrary (that
is to say, conceived extrinsically to the determination of fact). True
individual judgments are pure, and in them the universal penetrates the
individual and the determination of value coincides with that of fact.
In pseudojudgments there takes place no such penetration, but only the
mechanical _application_ of a predicate to a subject; so much so, that
here is a true occasion for employing words which signify an extrinsic
placing side by side, a reunion, combination or aggregation of subject
with predicate.
[Sidenote: _Importance of the individual pseudojudgments._]
Having made this clear, it is superfluous to repeat that we do
not intend to remove, or even to attenuate, the due importance of
individual pseudojudgments, as we did not remove or attenuate that of
pseudoconcepts, when we defined them for what they are. And how can
we deny their importance, if each one of us create and employ them at
every instant, if each one of us strive to keep in order as best he
can the patrimony of his own knowledge? It is easier for a student to
work without notes and memoranda than for any one not to make use of
individual pseudojudgments. If I pass mentally in review the material
that must go to form the history of Italian painting or literature, I
must of necessity arrange it in works of greater or less importance,
in plays and novels, in sacred pictures and landscapes, and so on;
save when I wish to understand those facts historically, and then I
must abandon those divisions. I must abandon them during that act
of comprehension; but I must immediately resume them, if I wish to
give the result of my historical research; and in this exposition it
will be impossible for me to avoid saying that Manzoni, after having
composed _five sacred hymns_ and _two tragedies,_ set to work upon a
historical _romance_; or that _landscape painting_ was developed in the
seventeenth century. These words are necessary instruments for swift
understanding, and only a philosophical pedant could propose to expel
them. In like manner, if I wish to buy a house, I shall visit several
houses and arrange them in memory, according to the situation, their
arrangement, their size and other characteristics, all formulated in
pseudojudgments. I shall have to abandon all of these in the act of
choice, for then the house that I shall choose will possess one only
characteristic: that of being the one that suits my wants, that is
to say, the one _that pleases me._ But I shall again have to employ
those abstract characteristics, in my conversation with the person who
sells it to me and in the contract that I make; there I shall speak,
not only of my will and pleasure, but also of a house thirty metres
high and forty wide, and so on. The same must be said of the squirrels
and platyrrhine monkeys, which I cannot contrive to see in a museum
or zoological garden, unless I describe them in that way; and I shall
continue so to describe them, although those abstract characteristics
have no definite value, either in permitting me to describe those
animals with accuracy, or in making me understand their meaning in the
universe, or in the history of the cosmos.
[Sidenote: _Empirical individual judgments and abstract individual
judgments._]
But in proceeding further to determine the differential characteristics
presented by pseudojudgments in contrast with individual judgments, it
is necessary to consider them according to the double form, empirical
and abstract, assumed by pseudoconcepts, thus distinguishing them as
empirical individual judgments and abstract individual judgments.
[Sidenote: _Process of formation of empirical judgments._]
In comparing empirical individual judgments with pure individual
judgments--for example, "The _Transfiguration_ is a sacred picture," an
empirical judgment, and "The _Transfiguration_ is an æsthetic work," a
pure judgment--the first thing to note is that the empirical individual
judgment presupposes the pure individual judgment. We already know
that pseudoconcepts, empirical or abstract, presuppose the idea of
the pure concept; but that idea does not suffice for the formation of
determinate empirical concepts, which can be employed as predicates of
empirical judgments. We must not only think effectively these or those
pure concepts, but they must be translated into individual judgments.
Were this not so, where would empirical concepts obtain their material?
Before the judgment: "The _Transfiguration_ is a sacred picture," can
be pronounced, we must first have the empirical concept of "sacred
picture." Now this empirical concept (setting aside the fact that it
presupposes other empirical concepts which we do not here take into
account, because they would complicate the problem without aiding
the solution that we wish to give) presupposes in its turn the pure
concept of "æsthetic work"; and it is only when a certain number, more
or less large, of artistic works have been recognized as such, that
is, when pure individual judgments concerning them have been formed,
that we can abstract the characteristics and pass to the formation
of the pseudoconcepts: sacred, historical, mythological pictures,
landscapes, and so on. Having obtained these, then, and only then when
we stand before an æsthetic work, for example, the _Transfiguration,_
and formulate again the pure individual judgment which recognizes it
as such ("The _Transfiguration_ is an æsthetic work"), are we enabled
finally to apply the pseudoconcept and to pronounce the empirical
judgment: "The _Transfiguration_ is a sacred picture."
[Sidenote: _Its foundation in existence._]
The consequence of the process here recognized as to the manner in
which individual empirical judgments are formed, and in virtue of which
they have pure judgments as their base, is that empirical judgments
also in the last analysis are based upon the concept of existentiality.
Pseudoconcepts of possibility are not formed, because possibilities are
infinite, and it would be vain, or of no mnemonic use, to fix types of
them. When, as sometimes occurs, such types seem to be formed outside
of all existence, their appearance serves, not a mnemonic purpose,
but a purpose of research. This is the case with hypotheses and with
other provisional methods of thought. But the empirical judgment is
related to the individual or existential judgment, and it also employs
pseudoconcepts of existential origin. For this reason, when giving
examples of judgments of existence in the preceding chapter, we availed
ourselves without scruple of empirical judgments also; for these obey
the same law in relation to existentiality. "This animal is a monkey"
implies, not only the existence of the animal taken as subject of the
judgment; but also of that class of animals, of which the character has
been abstracted, and the complex of characteristics which under the
name of a monkey fulfil the function of predicate. An animal that does
not exist and a class of animals that does not exist are not reducible
to subject and predicate, and do not give rise to judgment of any sort.
[Sidenote: _Dependence of empirical judgments upon pure judgments._]
Another consequence is that empirical concepts and judgments are
continually originated and modified by pure individual judgments.
The object of empirical concepts and judgments is to maintain the
possession and the easy use of our knowledge; and this with no other
end than that of serving as base for our actions, and thus also as
a means of attaining new knowledge. New knowledge is expressed in
new pure individual judgments, which in their turn supply material
for the elaboration of new empirical concepts and judgments. In this
way empirical concepts and judgments must be and continually are
renewed, by being dipped in the waters of pure individual judgments,
true judgments of reality. From these waters they issue forth with
youth renewed. If they do not do this, the worse for them: they fall
ill, waste away and die. Given a rapid and profound revolution of
thought, or, as it is also called, a transvaluation of all the values
of life and reality, we should also have at once a no less rapid and
profound transformation of all the empirical concepts and judgments
previously possessed and employed. But this is continually occurring
in the life of the spirit, if not in cataclysmic form, then in a more
modest way. For example, who now employs the empirical concept of
phlogiston, or forms judgments based upon it, now that we no longer
admit the existence of that element, which was at one time believed to
be separated from combustible bodies in the act of combustion? Who now
says (save in jest) that such and such a syllogism is in _bramantip_ or
in _fresison,_ or that a certain part of a speech is an _ornatum_ or
a _hypotyposis,_ now that we no longer believe the facts upon which
such concepts of the old Logic and Rhetoric were based? Who still
distinguishes human destinies according to the _conjunctions_ of the
stars that presided at birth, as was done when astrology was believed?
[Sidenote: _Empirical judgments as classification._]
The empirical judgment, in so far as it applies a predicate to a
subject supplied by the pure individual judgment, makes that subject
_enter_ that predicate, which is a _type_ or _class_; and therefore it
_classifies_ the subjects of individual judgments. Thus we may also
call empirical judgments, judgments of _classification._ This explains
why the judgment has sometimes been considered to be nothing but a
relation of subordination: for the empirical judgment does indeed
subordinate a representation (which has first been logically determined
by the individual judgment) to an empirical concept; that is, it places
it in a class.
[Sidenote: _Classification and intelligence._]
_Classification_ is an essential function, for the reasons already
given, which it would be useless to repeat; but to classify is not
to _realize intellectually,_ to understand, to grasp, to comprehend.
If therefore, in life, we disapprove of those unmethodical people
who detest classification, we do not disapprove any the less of the
perpetual classifiers, who content themselves with arranging things in
classes, when on the contrary the needful thing is to penetrate their
nature and peculiar value. It is a very common error to believe that
something has been thoroughly understood and every problem relating to
it completely solved, when it has simply been put into a drawer, that
is, into a class. Thus in the not distant past, instead of establishing
whether the _Promessi Sposi_ were or were not an æsthetic work, and
what movement of the spirit it represents, it was considered to be the
duty of criticism to enquire whether that book were a romance or a
novel, a historical or didactic romance, a historical representation
of persons or of environment, and so on. The zoologist too, instead of
studying the history and transformations of animals, their life and
habits, limited himself to adding a rare specimen to a variety, or a
variety to a subspecies, or a subspecies to a species, and believed
that by so doing he had completely fulfilled the function of science.
[Sidenote: _Interchange of the two, and genesis of perceptive and
judicial illusions._]
The abuse of empirical or classificatory judgments is not less in
relation to perception, which, as we know, is nothing but the series of
individual judgments. It frequently happens that when entering upon
the discussion of real facts, and having in mind groups and series of
pseudoconcepts, we hastily form empirical judgments, which take the
place of pure individual judgments and are taken in exchange for them.
From these exchanges have arisen certain famous controversies about
the truth of perception, such as that indicated by the instance of the
stick immersed in water, which seems to the eye to be broken, whereas
it is whole and straight. The usual answer to such a view is that the
error lies in the judgment, since perception as perception is never
wrong. This answer is not altogether correct, since the perception
is a judgment, and if the judgment is wrong, the perception also is
wrong. On the contrary, the error is not in the judgment, but in the
prejudice that the stick in question is in reality straight, and that
when immersed in water the genuine reality is disturbed by a new
element; as though the stick outside the water possessed greater or
less reality than when immersed in the water. This error arises from
the construction of the empirical concept of "stick," taken as a true
and proper concept, so that when the stick is immersed in water and
seems to be broken it seems not to answer to its true concept. Strictly
speaking, the perception of the stick as broken or otherwise altered
is not less true than that of the straight stick; the absurdity,
occasioned by the empirical concept, arises from seeking the true
perception among various perceptions, in order to make of it the basis
and foundation of the others declared illusory. This error would seem
to be of slight importance, so long at least as it is a matter of a
stick; but it entails most serious consequences, since it is owing to
similar errors that outside the Spirit there has come to be posited
_the Thing in itself._
[Sidenote: _Abstract concepts and individual judgments._]
Passing from the empirical to the abstract concepts, if these latter
presuppose the pure concept, they do not on the other hand presuppose
individual judgments. For example, in order to form the concepts of
numerical series, or of geometrical figures, it is not necessary to
know individual things. Those concepts are abstract, just because they
are without any representative content, and therefore no representative
element is required for their formation.
[Sidenote: _Impossibility of direct application of the first to the
second._]
But if this be so, it is clear that they cannot alone be translated
into individual pseudojudgments. They will certainly give rise to
judgments of definition (though always arbitrary and abstract), but
not to individual judgments. And in truth numerical and geometrical
series is not applicable to individual facts, as affirmed in
individual judgments. These are at the same time different and yet
inter-connected, in such a way that the one is somehow in the other.
The application of numerical series or geometrical figures implies
that we have before us _homogeneous_ objects (or objects which have
been made homogeneous, which amounts to the same thing). Things
qualitatively different elude such procedure: we cannot add up a cow,
an oak, and a poem. It may be urged that all things have this at least
in common, that they are _things_ and can therefore be enumerated as
such. But things, as such, or things in general are innumerable, being
infinite; which amounts to saying that the series of things in general
is the same as numerical series. Doubtless numerical series can be
constituted; but our enquiry concerns the possibility of making direct
applications of numbers to the individual; that is to say, whether or
not they give rise to _abstract_ individual judgments. We must reply
to this question in the negative. The formula "abstract individual
judgments" is itself a contradiction in terms; for the individual taken
in itself can never be abstract, nor the abstract ever individual, even
through a practical fiction.
[Sidenote: _Intervention of empirical judgments as intermediaries.
Reduction of the heterogeneous to the homogeneous._]
The consequence of this demonstration is then that if abstract
concepts can be applied to individual judgments (and they are as
a fact applied), there must be an intermediary which makes the
application possible. The Individual empirical judgments are just such
an intermediary. They reduce the heterogeneous to the homogeneous
and prepare the ground for the application of the abstract concepts
and for the formation of their corresponding pseudojudgments. These
are therefore more correctly termed empirico-abstract judgments
than individual-abstract judgments. Empirical and empirico-abstract
judgments cannot then be presented as two co-ordinate classes of the
individual pseudojudgment. They are two forms, of which the second is
evolved from the first.
The reduction of the _heterogeneous_ to the _homogeneous_ is effected
by means of the procedure already discussed, by the formation of
classes and classification with them as basis. Individual varieties,
which escape all numerical application, are thus subdued, and we obtain
in exchange things belonging to the same class, as for example oaks,
cows, men, ploughs, plays, pictures, and so on. These things are finite
in number (as we already know from our analysis of the representative
elements contained in a determinate empirical concept) and can
therefore be numbered. Thus we can finally arrive at pronouncing the
empirico-abstract judgments: "These cows number one hundred," "these
oaks are three hundred in number," "there are four hundred houses in
this village," "it contains two thousand inhabitants," "there are two
ploughs in this field," and so on. Or we can say elliptically: "100
cows," "300 oaks," "400 houses," "2000 inhabitants," "2 ploughs," and
so on, as is done in statistics and inventories.
[Sidenote: _Empirico-abstract judgments and enumeration (measurement,
etc.)._]
If the procedure proper to individual judgments has been described
as _classification,_ that of empirico-abstract judgments is rightly
called _enumeration._ Enumeration also makes possible another
procedure, known as _measurement,_ and what has been said by way of
example about abstract concepts of number must be repeated _mutatis
mutandis_ of geometrical figures, which are employed as instruments
of measurement. The procedure of measurement is somewhat more
complicated; enumeration and measurement are related to one another as
are arithmetical and geometrical concepts, but substantially they come
to the same thing. The definition sometimes given of measurement can
be extended to enumeration in general, namely, that it is _qualitative
quantity_ applied to quality, strictly speaking, to quality rendered
homogeneous by the process of classification. The empirico-abstract
judgments are in fact qualitative-quantitative.
[Sidenote: _Enumeration and intelligence._]
If classification does not imply understanding things and assigning
to them their value, neither does enumeration imply intelligence
and comprehension, because it consists of a manipulation, which is
altogether extrinsic and indifferent to the quality of the things
enumerated. That given objects are capable of enumeration or measurable
as ioo, or iooo, or 10,000 reveals nothing as to their character. It is
only as the result of gross illusion that value is sometimes believed
to be a function of number, and that value increases or diminishes with
the increase or diminution of number. The common saying that number is
not quality is a good answer to that illusion.